When You're Not Sleeping
by ComicalEpiphanies
Summary: Sometimes, when the world is asleep, Matt finds it harder to keep the promise he made his father. But that's why he has Foggy. Set in college years


Foggy Nelson's loud snores crashed against Matt's ears as he lay awake, staring into the blackness that only he could see. It was late, Matt knew, but he didn't feel tired. It was one of those times, the times when being completely blinded so quickly played a toll, even though his brain had almost twelve years to come to terms with it. His ophthalmologist had prescribed him sleeping pills for nights like this, when his brain didn't realize it was night and his circadian rhythm was out of whack, but Matt hated to take them. They blunted the world and made everything fuzzy, even the fire-esque images his brain constructed to represent his combined perceptions. The lack of details without medication didn't give a great picture of his surroundings, but adding the haze of sleeping pills made what little he did have useless. Unfortunately, that meant he had nothing to do but stare unseeingly up at the ceiling and listen to his roommate's solo in the symphony of a dormitory building at night.

Matt tried to focus passed the log sawing to the areas outside. He focused his attention on the rooms next-door. Jack and Henry, who lived in the room next to his and Foggy's, were asleep, but Henry had left his radio on again. It was playing soft jazz. The room beside them was quiet, but Matt could just barely hear the sound of three heartbeats. Someone had company. Matt smiled to himself. He hoped Kenny had had fun. The man was too uptight. It was about time he had a lady-friend over. In the stairwell, someone was talking on the phone. Their voice was bouncing off the stone walls, fracturing into segments of phonemes Matt didn't have the energy to reconstruct. He directed his ears to the outside.

Their window was cracked open despite Foggy's attempt to close it earlier. They were three floors up, but the sounds of New York could never be quashed. The comforting hull of traffic, even at three am, filled Matt's consciousness. He sucked in the air, and he could suddenly smell the particles of smoke, smog and even some fresh flowery scent from the flower shop two buildings down the street. It was almost pleasant in its familiarity. It was the smell of his home. Or almost his home. His home was about thirty blocks away, Hell's Kitchen, but even Matt couldn't smell that far.

Suddenly, Matt was jerked back to his own room by Foggy changing position. Foggy's heart skipped a beat in the rhythm, his bed creaked under the strain of the not-huge-but-comfortably-round twenty-year old, and a wave of sweat and old sheets hit Matt's nose. Matt's nose crinkled a bit, but he quickly blocked the scent out. He'd hint to Foggy it was time to do laundry tomorrow, Matt decided.

Matt sighed. Sleep was just not going to happen. He sat up and scooted off his bed as quietly as possible. He didn't bother directed his attention to the floor, instead reached toward where he always put his shoes. He grabbed them and walked quickly to his dresser to grab a pair of socks and an old sweatshirt. Silently, he pulled on the socks and shoes and yanked the sweatshirt over his head. He grabbed his cane, which he always left against the doorframe, out of habit. It was easier to use it than focus his attention constantly on his feet, anyway.

Matt paused before opening the door of their dorm room to pay attention again to Foggy's breathing and heart rate. After convincing himself that his roommate was solidly in deep sleep, Matt slipped out of the room.

The hallway lighting felt so harsh against Matt's skin after the cool darkness of the dorm room, he had to pause for a second to allow the surface of his skin to adapt to the change in temperature. Matt allowed himself to wonder, not for the first time, if the sensation was the same as what it had felt like to walk from a dark room into a lit one too quickly. It had been so long since Matt had actually seen anything, he wasn't sure. Things like that had been one of the first memories to go, Matt concluded, right after colors. As the years went by since his accident, Matt had more and more trouble remembering what it had been like before. What had it been like to see details? Or what did "normal", not people who'd had mysterious liquid dumped into their eyes that had made their senses superhuman, hear, or taste, or feel, or smell? Could they hear their neighbors singing in the shower down the hall? Surely they couldn't taste the preservatives in a can of processed soup, or no one would ever buy canned soup again.

Matt's musings were cut short when he reached the end of the hall. He didn't feel like focusing, so instead he felt for the handle of the door to the stairs like a normal blind man. He found it quickly and was immediately assaulted by the voice that he'd heard back in his room. Now that he was so close, the echoes weren't nearly as bad and he could tell the person was two floors below him. He hadn't noticed before, but now the smell of marijuana hit his nose like an anvil. Matt fought the urge to sneeze and climbed the stairs to the roof as quickly as possible. How could people stand to smell that crap? Even outside, in the semi-fresh air of New York, the horrible stench clung to Matt. He'd smell it for at least a week, even if he cleaned his clothes twice. Matt took a deep breath of his sweatshirt to become accustomed to the smell so he wouldn't perceive it anymore. Habituation and adaptation was Matt's best friend when it came to bad sensations, these days. It took a few more good breaths, but eventually Matt could only smell the lingering stench if he actively paid attention to it. It would do.

Matt headed to the edge of the building and sat on the ledge, folding his cane and placing it beside him. Had he still commanded the use of his eyes, he would be looking out over the city he'd been born and raised in. He would see the New York skyline and a big, almost-full moon covered by pulled-cotton clouds. Instead, all he saw when he looked was darkness, and perhaps, as a trick of his brain, silhouettes of reds, whites and yellows.

Matt closed his eyes and for the first time in a while, allowed his grip on his senses to lessen. Almost at once, Matt was inundated with an orchestra of sounds, smells, feelings, and tastes. They slammed against his body, almost making him cry out in pain, but Matt forced himself not to block them out, not yet. He ordered himself to pay attention, to try to be alert to as many of the sensations as possible. Only when he could take it no longer did he being to focus.

He started with his sense of touch. He could feel the cold concrete under his bottom, the vague outline of the dorm building next door against his chest, the whip of the chilling late-November wind against his cheek, the heavy metal door that led inside against his back, and a thousand other things. He fixated on each piece of information and slowly released it in turn. Finally, when all the information had been blurred to the background, he turned his attention to the cacophony of scents and tastes.

These were easier. He didn't allow himself to give name to each scent and taste, but he carefully sorted each particle, making sure he could separate what he was smelling from what he was tasting. The burnt, fresh smell of ozone from the thunderstorm last night; the gritty, clean taste of dirt from the flower pot someone had left next to the door long ago; the cold, hospital smell of the used condoms expertly stuffed into a notch in the brick; the acidic, sickly smell of old beer; Matt registered it all.

Finally, Matt let himself hear. He stretched his sense of hearing as far as it would go. If he really focused, he could maybe hear the subway stopping fifteen or so blocks south. Matt pushed himself to hear the rumbling of the subway, that deep base that thundered so loudly in his heart when he got near enough. He heard it and moved on. He could hear cats in the alley six blocks away. They didn't sound like they were having fun together. Then there was the old homeless man, a wounded Golf War vet, snoring on the stoop of the building three blocks way, and the group of old men playing poker even at this hour in an apartment two blocks over. Slowly, Matt brought himself closer.

Then he heard it. It was a co-ed, a girl, but Matt didn't know her name. He heard her cry out, and the unmistakable sound of a man's open palm slapping against a cheek. The screaming stopped abruptly, but Matt was straining his ears to pick up more. The girl and her attacker were no more than a block and a half away, in an alley. Matt sprung to his feet—he had to do something! He needed to call the campus police—they could help her! Even as he thought that, he knew he didn't have his phone on him. It was charging on his desk where he'd put it earlier tonight. Matt froze. He didn't know what to do.

The next building wasn't far away; he could feel it's wind-shadow easily. It wouldn't be hard to jump across. All he'd have to do is vault over the edge of the building and roll into position for the single story drop. Then he could run to the next building and from there, he could figure out the best way to get to the girl. He could save her. He could stop the monster that was attacking an innocent freshman. He grasped the ledge and readied himself to jump.

"Matt!"

Matt spun around, his eyes spinning in a vain search for the source of the sound. It took him almost too long to recognize Foggy's heartbeat, pounding fast in agitation. He was too distracted with wondering why Foggy's heart was beating so quickly and why he smelled fear rolling off of Foggy's body to notice that Foggy was moving. As a result, he was yanked away from the ledge so violently that he stumbled and tumbled to the ground, on top of something decidedly squishy.

"What the hell, Foggy?" Matt cried, pushing himself off his roundish roommate and onto his feet to face his attacker. "Was that really necessary?"

"Fuck yeah! Had you leaned any further, you would have fallen seven stories straight on your head! You'd be _dead_!" Foggy replied, his heart only just beginning to return to its normal rhythm, even as the fear in his voice rapidly morphed into anger. "What the fuck did you think you were doing?!"

Matt's mind went blank. He couldn't think of a single excuse. He said the first thing that came to mind. "I was just trying to lean over. I wanted to see the ground."

"'See'?" Foggy's anger seemed to evaporate the moment Matt's words hit his ears. "Matt—"

Matt realized what he'd said a second too late. He interrupted Foggy before he could continue. "I meant I wanted to see if I could tell how far up we are."

"By counting how long it took you to reach the ground?" Foggy didn't sound very placated, but at least the only emotion Matt could feel or hear in his voice was exacerbation. "Seriously, how did you think that was going to go?"

Matt shrugged. "I guess I thought I'd be able to hear sounds bounce off the ground."

"Can you do that?" Foggy sounded curious now.

"Sometimes," Matt lied. Actually, he did it all the time, but now wasn't the time to tell Foggy all his secrets. Matt hadn't even told his father about what he could do; it wouldn't be fair to tell Foggy. "When it's quiet enough and the sounds are a good frequency to bounce nicely."

"What's a good frequency?"

Matt didn't remember the details of reading emotions on faces, but he did remember that his father had always been able to tell when he was lying or holding something back by looking into his eyes. Matt was suddenly keenly aware that his sunglasses were on his desk and not his face. Matt turned away from his roommate, just in case Foggy was as good at reading his eyes as his father had been. "High ones, usually, because they bounce back better, but low ones don't hurt my ears as often."

"Cool," Foggy replied, pushing himself up to sit on the same ledge Matt had been using as a seat earlier. All the negative, worry-rooted emotions present only a minute ago seemed to have disappeared. The only thing Matt could hear in his voice and feel in his posture was Foggy's usual naive self. Matt could feel him looking at him. "But what were you going to use to bounce the sound waves back? And, more importantly, why were you going to do it in the first place?"

Matt smiled. "I was going to whistle, I guess. I hadn't really thought it through."

"Well that's clear." Foggy snorted and then yawned. He wasn't used to the adrenaline high of saving his best friend from certain death. "What are you doing up here anyway?"

It took Matt a moment to answer. Foggy's last question had reminded him of the girl, and he was trying to hear her, but there was no sign of her, or her attacker. Matt's heart clinched and had to actively work to prevent his jaw from tightening in anger. He hoped to God the girl was okay. He could have saved her. But then, Matt knew, he wasn't supposed to fight. He was going to save all the victims like that girl using his mind, not his fists, just like he'd promised his father. Then Matt realized Foggy had asked another question. "Hmm? What?"

"I asked what you're doing up here at the ungodly hour of four-thirty in the morning."

"Oh," Matt shrugged, "meditating. I couldn't do it in the room. You were snoring up a log-pile."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Foggy's voice went up with what Matt knew to be faux-indignation. "I'll have you know I don't snore."

Matt pushed the thought of the girl out of his mind for now, and ordered himself to smile, finally turning to face his best friend. "Right. The defendant has no case, given that said party has never personally witnessed the events in question."

"The burden of proof lies with the prosecution in this here land," Foggy rebutted.

A genuine smile finally crossed Matt's face. "Then the prosecution shall collect the evidence. Let us return to the future scene of the crime, where such evidence can be gathered." Matt gestured for Foggy to stand and grabbed his elbow when Foggy offered it.

"And by the way, what were you doing out here anyway?" Matt added, as Foggy led him down the stairs back to their room.

"I woke up and you weren't there. I thought you might have gone off to study up here like last time. I was going to come up and steal the book out from under your fingers and hold it hostage until you went to sleep. Good thing I didn't go back to sleep, huh?"

Foggy made the question sound like a joke, but Matt could clearly hear the fear the question raised. It made him feel a stab of guilt. It would be so easy to tell Foggy that he would never had ended up head-first on the asphalt, but no. No one could know. It was better that way.

Later, once Foggy had returned to slumber land, Matt lay awake, again staring blankly at the ceiling. There, back in the room, Matt's thoughts spun. Foggy hadn't been wrong in believing that he'd saved Matt's life. He'd saved Matt from using his fists, or worse, sharing his secret. If the world knew what he could do, he'd be locked up and dissected like a frog, he knew it. Besides, he'd have broken the only promise he'd ever made to his father. He would not use his fists. He would save the people of his city using his mind. And that girl hadn't necessarily been in trouble. What if he'd shared his secret, only to find out that she and her "attacker" were really a couple that was into role-play? He hadn't been able to hear their heartbeats or feel the heat coming off of their bodies or smelled their sweat. It was possible. Yeah—Matt lied to himself—it was possible. If he'd come swooping in, it could have ruined everything. Or he could have saved a girl from years of hell.

Matt was grateful when his alarm finally went off, signaling the beginning of a new day.


End file.
